Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

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KevinSim
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by KevinSim »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Mon Aug 01, 2022 7:42 pm
More game playing by MG.
I am not MG.
KevinSim
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by KevinSim »

Marcus wrote:
Mon Aug 01, 2022 7:57 pm
:lol: too funny. and the mystery poster STILL managed to NOT explain what they meant by the pink part of this post from PAGE EIGHTEEN:
Not for lack of trying! Humanity needs someone who can preserve some good things forever; I call such a someone God; without God humanity will go extinct. So if God does not exist, people are conscientiously obligated to produce Her/Him. What's so hard to understand about that? What is contradictory about that?
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Marcus »

KevinSim wrote:
Sat Aug 06, 2022 3:58 am
Marcus wrote:
Mon Aug 01, 2022 7:57 pm
:lol: too funny. and the mystery poster STILL managed to NOT explain what they meant by the pink part of this post from PAGE EIGHTEEN:
Not for lack of trying! Humanity needs someone who can preserve some good things forever; I call such a someone God; without God humanity will go extinct. So if God does not exist, people are conscientiously obligated to produce Her/Him. What's so hard to understand about that? What is contradictory about that?
it's not a matter of being contradictory or difficult to understand, it's simply that you haven't provided any reasoning for your assumptions.

for example...

assumption 1: "Humanity needs someone who can preserve some good things forever"

why?

assumption 2/tautology: "without God humanity will go extinct."

only because you define god as "someone who can preserve some good things forever,"

assumption 3: "So if God does not exist, people are conscientiously obligated to produce Her/Him."

Why? Why are people obligated to produce something, simply because that something does not exist?

Also, what exactly do you mean by "producing God"? How is that accomplished, in your mind?
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Res Ipsa
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Res Ipsa »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:57 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 7:20 pm
When someone misinterprets something you say, stop asking them questions like “where did I say that” or “why do you think I think that.” Just correct them by telling them what you actually say or mean.
Kevin Sim, that actually doesn’t work so well. The crowd will still see what they want to see and disregard the rest.

Regards,
MG
It actually works quite well as long as one stays focused on the subject and ignores invitations to derail from the crowd.
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Res Ipsa »

KevinSim wrote:
Sat Aug 06, 2022 3:15 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:35 pm
I agree, but I don’t see what that has to do with the existence of your God.
That's because it has nothing to do with the current existence of God. In this subthread I am not trying to prove the current existence of God. I'm trying to show why humanity needs someone who knows how to stop playing the mentioned metaphorical Russian Roulette, and I call that someone God. I'm not arguing that that someone exists; I'm simply saying that humanity needs that someone to exist.
Res Ipsa wrote:And I don’t understand why you think I have some special duty to some future generation that I literally know nothing about as opposed to the next generation after mine.
Res Ipsa, I find it hard to believe you feel a duty to the next generation but not the generation after that. You care about the second generation (after you) because the first generation (after you) cares about them, and because you care about that first generation. And the process is recursive. We owe the next generation a better world than we have, or at least one that is not worse. Have we really filled that debt if the next generation is just one generation closer to the extinction of the species?
I get that this is not your argument that God exists. What I was having trouble with what your assumed duty to the last generation of humans had to do with God.

What it sounds like your argument boils down to is a claim that I have a moral duty to do something impossible. Therefore, I am obligated to make the possible happen. And we’ll label whatever it is that makes the impossible happen “God.” Therefore, we need this undefined God

You start by asserting that each generation of humans has a moral duty to prevent the world from being worse at the time of its death than it was at the time of its birth. That’s pretty vague duty, with what would constitute a better world and a worse world left completely undefined.

From there you jump to an assertion that each generation owes an additional duty to the last generation of humans in the future, even though we don’t know anything about them or why they ended up being the last generation.

The problem is that the first, vague duty doesn’t logically imply a special duty to any particular generation, let alone the last one. A person 20 generations ago would have no idea of knowing what the current generation of humans would need in terms of survival. Likewise, the father in the future we get from today, the less we can know how we should act to benefit that generation. That’s why I say that, whatever that moral duty to future generations is, I can best fulfill it by based on the needs of the next generation.

But then you assert that the additional duty to the last generation is to make sure it isn’t the last generation. Again, it’s just an assertion that isn’t logically implied by what comes before it. It’s just an assertion, and it’s a doozy because it asserts that we have a moral duty to make the human race last forever — something that so far as we know is literally impossible.

The human race living forever violates the second law of thermodynamics. In the long run, entropy wins. In terms energy, not only is it impossible to win, it’s impossible to break even.

So, what you’re really claiming is that the human race has a moral duty to do something impossible. And my response to that is that no one has a moral duty to do the impossible. The absence of the ability to choose to comply removes the discussion completely out of the realm of morals. It’s the equivalent of telling a surgeon she has a duty to bring a dead patient back to life. The impossible can form the basis of a wish, but not a moral duty.

Not only is your asserted moral duty logically impossible to comply with, it’s also impossible as a practical matter. Without knowing the cause of the end of the human race, it is impossible for us to know how to prevent it. We have to choose how to allocate resources. If it’s the expansion of the Sun, then we would need to devote resources to moving off earth in the future. If it’s an asteroid collision, we’d need to create a reliable method of deflecting or destroying such an object. If it’s global thermonuclear war, then we need to devote resources to that. Climate change? Plague? It is literally impossible for us today to anticipate when that last generation to occur and the cause of the extinction of the human race.

Your next solution is to imagine something that can do the impossible and call it God. If such an entity existed, perhaps it would have a moral duty to make the human race exist forever, but that doesn’t change what my moral duties should be. I can imagine all kinds of arguably good things that are impossible. That doesn’t give you or anybody else a moral duty to somehow make my imaginings real.

Last you jump to atheists have a moral duty to create this undefined something that can do an impossible thing. But, again, this doesn’t flow from anything that comes before. You’re conflating the existence of something with belief in the existence of something. If God exists, it does so regardless of my belief of lack of. And if God doesn’t exist, there is no reason that atheists would have any special duty to create God.

All you have is a series of assertions that are not connected by logic or reason. You keep repeating them as if they do, but you have yet to explain why any of them are logically connected to one another.

I can general agree with your first step. But as soon as you start arguing that people have a moral duty to do the impossible based on something that you imagine and give a name to, I completely disagree.
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Chap »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sun Aug 07, 2022 1:40 am
All you have is a series of assertions that are not connected by logic or reason. You keep repeating them as if they do, but you have yet to explain why any of them are logically connected to one another.
Well yes, there is that ... so what's new?
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by malkie »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sun Aug 07, 2022 1:40 am
All you have is a series of assertions that are not connected by logic or reason. You keep repeating them as if they do, but you have yet to explain why any of them are logically connected to one another.
I wonder if KS is going according to his own logical steps:
  1. Something is very desirable (preservation of good things)
  2. There must be a way to achieve that, since it is so good
  3. Humans on there own may not be able to achieve 1.
  4. An entity that could achieve 1. would, by his definition, be God
  5. He chooses to believe in a specific God - the God of Mormonism
  6. An atheist, by denying the existence of God, thereby takes on the burden of achieving 1.
  7. Since atheists are human, and (by 3.) cannot achieve 1., they must produce the agent who can - God
I may be missing a step or two in between, but this is how I have rationalized what he seems to be going for. I'm not saying that I accept this as logical, as there are too many missing pieces, only that I can see a certain cohesion in it.

Of course, KS may completely disagree, which is his right.

Edited to add 7.
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Fence Sitter »

Some of us have been down this road before with KS, several times and pointed out the same things Res and Malkie are saying. He does not get it. He will avoid responding directly to the posts and just ask questions. I fully expect him to respond to this post by asking me why I think he will avoid direct responses. It's his M.O.

As to Res's and Malkie responses, you make very valid logical posts as to why his claims make no sense but it can really be illustrated by simply substituting Santa Claus for God and asking Kevin how his arguments wouldn't apply equally to either. Or, you could just say that the Flying Spaghetti monster is what really preserves good things forever. Non Pastafarians are responsible to prove otherwise.

I predict that he will tire of dragging out yet another thread, disappear and reappear with the same stupid claims in a couple of years.
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Chap »

Fence Sitter wrote:
Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:57 pm
Some of us have been down this road before with KS, several times and pointed out the same things Res and Malkie are saying. He does not get it. He will avoid responding directly to the posts and just ask questions. I fully expect him to respond to this post by asking me why I think he will avoid direct responses. It's his M.O.
Yup. As sure as night follows day. Those are his standard chatbot settings ...
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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Re: Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

Post by Marcus »

Fence Sitter wrote:
Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:57 pm
Some of us have been down this road before with KS, several times and pointed out the same things Res and Malkie are saying. He does not get it. He will avoid responding directly to the posts and just ask questions. I fully expect him to respond to this post by asking me why I think he will avoid direct responses. It's his M.O.

As to Res's and Malkie responses, you make very valid logical posts as to why his claims make no sense but it can really be illustrated by simply substituting Santa Claus for God and asking Kevin how his arguments wouldn't apply equally to either. Or, you could just say that the Flying Spaghetti monster is what really preserves good things forever. Non Pastafarians are responsible to prove otherwise.

I predict that he will tire of dragging out yet another thread, disappear and reappear with the same stupid claims in a couple of years.
It's interesting you would say that.
_KevinSim wrote:
Mon Jan 23, 2017 7:11 pm
<snipped>
I have a question wrote:You're making a statement based solely on what you want to believe, not on any kind of reasonable, rational, objective enquiry into what is already known.
Reasonable, rational, objective enquiries into what is already known, can indeed produce a lot of positive results. But they are not the only things that result in positive results. Being based in reality is a good thing. But just as important as (or perhaps more so than) understanding the truth of the things that are, is understanding the truth about what things should be.

I look at the universe and make the observation that if someone doesn't take action to preserve some good things forever, then nothing good will be preserved forever. And I register my rejection of an outcome where nothing good gets preserved forever. My conscience will not let me content myself with such a probable outcome. Conscientious people need a forever preserver. The only choice is whether one believes such a preserver currently exists, or whether one realizes that s/he must work toward producing such a preserver. I have simply made the former choice.
I have a question wrote:Your very first statement "But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth" is completely wrong, an entirely false premise, but you need it to be right because the rest of your conclusion relies solely upon it.
Sorry about that! I left out one very important word. I should have said, "But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth" about God. We can't begin our knowledge about the will of God in our lives without input from God.

Do you think that that statement "is completely wrong, an entirely false premise"? If you do think so, then are you aware of another way to start one's knowledge of the will of God in our lives? Going on the assumption that a deity in control of the universe exists, of course.
and the Tl;dr version:
_KevinSim wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:36 pm
...
DoubtingThomas wrote:Do you really need to believe in gods to hope for a better future?
No, you definitely do not need a belief "in gods to hope for a better future." But all God is for me is someone who knows how to preserve forever some good things, so if our goal is to preserve forever some good things, we do need my type of God.


[color added]
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